As Covid was spreading last year, my parents tried to be careful but also refused to let it halt their lives. They are both in their 80s and they felt that they only had so much time left to live so they wanted to continue going out to eat at restaurants, visiting with friends, going to church, etc...
On Saturday, December 5th 2020, my mom stopped by my house to say hi to my kids. Here is a picture we took before a Santa Run 5K:
That's her on the right side. She walked 3 miles that day with friends! She went to church and went to dinner. She was full of activity. Four days later, she was feeling sick, like she had a cold, but the next day she was so ill she went to an urgent care center. She had a fever of 102. She was nauseated. She had no appetite and had headaches. She tried to rest at home but we bought her a pulse oximeter and it was showing decreased levels on oxygen in her system. And so, just 10 days after the picture above, she was admitted to the hospital.
Just a couple days after admission, she could no longer breathe without oxygen. She was more nauseated and had a fever that would go up and down.
We Facetimed each other to stay in touch:
Look at those 2 pictures. Ten days apart. And this was a healthy women, who ate lots of vegetables, exercised daily, drank lots of water, did not smoke or drink alcohol too much. She was an upbeat and optimistic person with a genuine giant smile who made everyone around her feel good.
Now, she was alone in the hospital. No visitors. Only a cellphone for herself. They admitted her with what she had on her and because of the contagious nature of the disease there was no visiting, no dropping off of magazines, or change of clothes. She had an optimistic attitude that maybe she will be home by Christmas (Dec 25). That would give her 10 days to recover. But, in those ten days she did not get better, she got worse. She was receiving fluids intravenously and receiving blood transfusions and remdesivir to try to control the virus. After spending Christmas alone in the hospital, she set a new goal for returning home: the new year. She thought that if she couldn't make it by Christmas, well then by New Year's Day.
But Covid continued to destroy her lungs. Her caregivers started taking blood almost daily to look for clotting. After spending New Year's alone in the hospital she continued to get worse. She said that she felt like she was drowning just not in water. When she would try to get a breath, her lungs would convulse and she would go into coughing fits that she could not control. She was now in bed 23 hours a day, barely able to walk, only able to survive with supplemental oxygen. Simply going to the bathroom would drain her energy/oxygen and make her feel faint. She said that this was far worse than she thought it would be.
She had survived colon cancer that required an invasive surgery that removed her colon and large intestine and breast cancer that required a double mastectomy.
She said that Covid was far worse than any of that.
In the meantime, the effects of covid went far beyond her own health. Anxious and worried about her health, it was hard to concentrate on much else. The emotions affected me as well as my kids (her grand daughters) and dozens of other people. While I appreciated their thoughts, I was inundated with phone calls from her friends and other family members who wanted to know how she was. It was exhausting. I was simultaneously trying to communicate with her doctors and manage her care while also caring for my father who was not used to being alone and caring for himself. The ripple effects of an illness like Covid are hard to quantify. I was trying to manage her financial affairs and pay her bills because she was not able to do any of that.
She was not sure that she was going to live. She was scared and sad. But then, after an experimental treatment of powerful immunosuppressants her condition started to stabilize. She was no longer getting worse, but she was not getting better. Her doctors had prevented her from dying but there was not much more that they could do in the hospital. They hoped that with some physical therapy she could strengthen her lungs. So, after 3 and a half weeks in the hospital, her doctors were transferring her to a rehabilitation facility. She still was not able to have any visitors. It would be over a month where she saw no one except doctors and nurses looking at her through masks, face shields and lab coats and other PPE. However, she continued to FaceTime me and she described her room at the rehab facility where was now. I was able to figure out what room it was from the description and after not seeing her in person for over a month and thinking that I might never see her alive again, I drove to a back alley and said hello through her window. We cried. I still would not be able to hug her or touch her for another 10 days or so.
Although she did not make it home for Christmas or New Years that year, she did make it home for her 80th birthday. On January 18th, I picked her up at the rehab facility and for the first time in 42 days I was able to hug my own mother.
This was a new chapter of worry and difficulty. She could hardly walk upstairs and she required supplemental oxygen which meant being connected to a machine via air tubes. We were worried about her using the shower and the toilet. And the supplemental oxygen was an explosion risk so it could not be used in the kitchen but we also were not sure that in her diminished mental state that she would remember to not use the gas stove with the oxygen on. There were all sorts of tripping hazards like coffee tables and rugs. In short, yes she survived, but the experience was long, stressful and still an ongoing adjustment. And we are now 7 months passed her return home and while she has resumed much of her previous activities she is not the same. Her body has trouble regulating its blood sugar - possibly from damage to her pancreas, her lungs are not at full capacity and may never be - she requires a conscious effort to take deep breaths, and mentally she still has trouble remembering words.
In short, she lived, but you don't want this disease, even if you survive it and you don't want to spread it to any of your own loved ones.
